2009 We look so forward to weekends to escape the mind numbing stressful workplace… and then are so busy trying to do some of the items we want to do and the things that we are doing for others, that come Monday morning you look around and say.. what happened?
Case in point:

Finished modifying the display case shelving.. now have to find the meteorites to display.

Got the Roboscope systems back up and running and communicating with the dome, the telescope, the webcam and the CCD camera. Even updated the Digital Domeworks software from v4 to v5.1. Tried out an hour or so of operational testing and failed 🙁 Need more time in the daylight with warmer weather.

spent the better part of 8 hours over the weekend at work, upgrading the 8 year old hardware (Intel Pentium 4’s running at 1.8GHz, 512mb SDRAM, 20gb IDE Boot drives) running two of the servers over to five year old hardware (AMD Athlon XP2500+ at 1.83GHz, 1024mb DDRAM, 80gb IDE boot drives).
Performance is noticeably faster as is the heat output. The Kill-a-Watt power meter shows these starting up at 165 watts and settling down to 125 watts running.

Comet Lulin … it cleared just enough this morning around 05:30, that we were able to go out and convince ourselves that we saw Comet Lulin in binoculars amongst the cloud and haze. Look for closest approach on Tuesday Feb 23rd near the planet Saturn in Leo.

Battlestar Galactica… managed to stay awake after another very long day on Friday and watch the whole episode.. very good. So long “old” Apollo.. it was good to see you again.
Friday February 13th 7:30pm RASC-Kingston Centre Regular Meeting

at Stirling Hall Theatre A, Bader Lane, Queen’s University Dr Gregg Wade (RMC) will speak on recent “Large Programs” that have been established at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope.
These are really exciting, and range from a census of the Virgo cluster to
detailed mapping of individual stars. One of the four Large Programs is his own project called MiMeS, which is about stellar magnetism.

A lot of little catch up items .. groundhog day was yesterday and with groundhogs only at 39% with their predictions, at least the big 3 all agreed on seeing shadow and more winter coming.
We of course watched Groundhog Day.. an annual tradition.

The snowblower went out twice in the last week, clearing out over 50 cm… at least we can get to the greenhouse and observatory now.

The KAON400 (Kingston Astronomy Outreach Network) kickoff event on January 10th went well as described earlier. The guest speaker kickoff at RMC had a hiccup or two… a widespread power outage the afternoon and night of the talk on Tuesday… during a blizzard…
so it was rescheduled for Wednesday and everything went well.
Dr. Sara Seagher spoke on extrasolar planets and methods of detecting them.

We have wondered for some time what an LCD monitor placed out in the observatory would do.. and if it would hold out… and so far it has been out for 3 weeks and is doing wonderfully…despite -10, -15 and -20C temps.

On the evening of Friday January 9th, 2009 the RASC-Kingston Centre held an International Year of Astronomy kickoff lecture in Stirling Hall.
The very next night we held a public observing session at the Queen’s University Ellis Hall Observatory but got clouded out. As a kickoff event we had a talk on Galileo by Dr. Judith Irwin with a visit from Galileo and Cardinal Barberini
Along with our Kingston City Mayor Harvey Rosen reading the City Proclamation of IYA Kickoff Week.

We closed out the kickoff week with a talk by Dr. Sara Seagher (MIT) on Exoplanets at the Royal Military College Currie Hall, a day after originally scheduled due to a widespread power outage.

I don’t know about you, but we are going to settle down in front of a large warm fire, with a nice warm pizza with a lot of nice warm cats and going to watch the HOT HOT HOT debut of this latest and last season of Battlestar Galactica! The Spacecast channel here in Canada has been running the first 10 episodes of the current season all day long and there are several specials tonight as well, before the big event at 10pm EST. Here’s hoping that the nuclear devastation we saw at the end of the last episode was really a big dream sequence!

And of course this is the International Year of Astronomy!
Check out the local Kingston effort at kingstoniya.ca, bringing together the Royal Military College, Queen’s University and The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada – Kingston Centre.
Another 3 hours spent organizing last night for our kickoff week starting on Friday January 9th. The City of Kingston Council proclaimed the IYA for us last night as well. Pretty Cool.
Saturday the 10th is another big day and we close off the week with a talk on Tuesday the 13th. You can see the Canadian IYA site as well.

1st day of a new year, start it out with observing in the -18C cold!
This is an image of the 5.44 day old moon, 1/160 sec through Starbuck, our 20cm telescope. Virtual Moon Atlas tells us the biggest crater on the terminator near the centre of the crescent is Theophilus. This crater is 100kmx100km and forms a trio of craters with Cyrillus and Catharina.

I must say, the weather over the last week, has left one to desire it much, except when the sun comes out. From before Christmas we had snow, so we got our White Christmas. On Christmas Eve, later in the afternoon, it starts to rain with temperatures rising to +6 overnight, and of course this means the snow is disappearing. On the way to Church on this Christmas eve, in the distance were fireworks. Big bright greens ones brings a smile to may face. No matter how old you are, fireworks are always fun to watch. Off and on over the next few days it would warm up, the snow melts, it gets cool at night. On Sunday December 28th , Kevin and I go for a walk, its +8C but a wicked little wind. Clouds to the north, a rainbow to the West, and the sun peaking over a cloud front in the East. As we reached the creek, there then appeared a double rainbow, very intense, then it started to rain. By the time we went around the loop back to Branch street, the rainbow was diminishing but the rain was still present. By later in the day, the temperatures were starting to plunge back in the double negatives. By Monday the sun had come out, but the wind was peaking up towards 70-90 km gusts, so the radio station states. Me, well I took a book , a blanket, a glass of wine and sat out front to soak up the sun, and at least a daily intake of Vitamin D. The clouds returned, the wind remained, in fact all night, and it was cold. By Tuesday, it was -15C going into work, but clear. I did look out the window in the morning, and did see Cassiopeia and RhoCass, the Dipper and Saturn. That day at lunch, after the running around was done, I managed to view the sun. On the way home at the grocery store, I managed to see Venus and the crescent moon 10 degrees apart, but that was soon gobbled up by the encroaching grey/black snow clouds.

We were to get snow overnight, and it did not disappoint but only a skiff so far. It was very dark driving in, the roads snow covered, no plows had been out to sand the roads, but according the CSC alarm, it was going to clear up and I would be able to observe the sun. It cleared indeed, still -12C , high haze, but sunny, the telescope and tripod came out of the back of the van, and solar observing I did do. Again no spots, very quiet CR2077 and CR2078, but this was a record of three solar observations in a row, and this on the Eve of a New Year. The first day in 2009 is to be clear as well a wonderful way to start the year.

However, the end of 2008 will not disappoint me. Everyone this evening, at least if your skies are clear, should be able to see Venus and the crescent moon in the SW. Lower in the SW will be Jupiter, and I am going to try to see Mercury. Tonight it is dipping to -18C, it will be cold, but perhaps I will bundle up and go outside to take in the New Year with starlight and peace.

The great Stone Mills Solar Project is one step closer to reality.
While driving by the site this past weekend we came across the 2nd and 3rd signs of progress. The first sign was a chain link fence around the facility that went up some months ago.
Sunday we saw this sign and a real honest to goodness construction shack/trailer.
Groundbreaking was on April 21st, 2008 and not a lot of activity has been seen since.

Funny that the initial press release doesn’t quite jibe with the signage:

“In collaboration between SkyPower and SunEdison, the groundbreaking 300-Acre site to be finished at the end of 2009 will generate 19 megawatts of power for the region. Adler points out that this is one of many projects worldwide that have been fueling the demand for renewable energy.”

Another winter storm.. this time 10 deg C and windy.. 20-30 kph with
gusts up to 50kph here. Our weather station has had new batteries (AA alkaline) installed for the first time in its wireless sensors since it was installed.
Our weather station data can be seen here andupdates every 10 minutes or so

Phew… We had some kind of windstorm blow through here Christmas Eve. It turned out that it sounded worse than it really was. The weather station showed gusts up to only 40kph. It could have been all the rain that came along with it but in the end, we still have snow leftover. We had several brownouts during the strom last evening and possible through the night, as the house server rebooted a few times and came up this morning crashed. Guess that UPS needs replacing.